1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image communication apparatus, which has a detachable external storage medium, and stores image data in external storage medium.
2. Related Background Art
In a conventional facsimile apparatus, a semiconductor memory is known as a storage medium for storing image data. Recently, as storage media which can hold data while a power supply is OFF, a hard disk, a floppy disk (to be referred to as an FD hereinafter), and the like are used.
Of these storage media, when a low-speed storage medium such as an FD is used, image data is temporarily stored in a high-speed storage medium (first storage medium) such as a D-RAM, and the stored image data is then transferred to a low-speed storage medium (second storage medium) such as an FD, so that the processing speed of the overall system is not decreased.
After the image data is transferred, the D-RAM holds the image data. When the image data is used, it can be directly read out from the high-speed D-RAM. More specifically, the FD serves as a back-up medium for the D-RAM, which is used when image data stored in the first storage medium is lost due to, e.g., an OFF operation of the power supply.
In the prior art, however, a detached FD is inserted in another facsimile apparatus, so that image data stored in the inserted FD can be transmitted, printed out, and so on. At the same time, since the same image data is held in the D-RAM in the original facsimile apparatus, the image data can be transmitted, printed out, and so on.
In this manner, since the D-RAM and the FD store the same image data, and since the FD is detachable, image access operations such as a transmission operation, a print-out operation, and the like undesirably overlap each other.
As applications associated with an image communication apparatus which stores image data in a detachable storage medium such as an FD, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,827,349, 4,910,785, and 4,900,902, and U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 07/269,733, 07/446,479, 07/707,034, and 07/615,149 are known.
However, applications that can solve the above-mentioned problems have not been proposed yet.